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Ketty La Rocca (La Spezia, 14 July 1938 – Firenze, 7 February 1976)

Ketty la Rocca was one of the most important artists in the European art of the 1960s-1970s. She was a leading exponent of body art and poesia visiva movements.
She made her debut in the early 1960s as a poet, and a poet she remained until her death, even if in a broader sense. Beside the experience with concrete poetry, she produced, in line with the visual poetry of Gruppo 70, to which she belonged, her collages, a set of images and words taken from newspapers and magazines and recombined in critical forms.
Starting from the late 1960s and early 1970s, her research was concentrate on deep reflection on the universe of communication and, in so doing, she was a true pioneer in using most advanced techniques of her time, such as videotapes, installation and performance. In this period Ketty La Rocca made several sculptures in black plastic (PVC), reproducing single letters of the alphabet and punctuation mark (mainly comma), and various objects in metal and mirror.
Then, in her works, Ketty La Rocca developed the idea of a body-language, or of a body turned into language. She used men’s and women’s hands making elementary gestures. The fundamental steps in this direction were the publication of artist’s book “In principio erat” in 1971 (defined as one of the fundamental experiences of body art in Italy by Lea Vergine) and the video “Appendice per una supplica”, shown for the first time at the 1972 Biennale di Venezia.
The evolution of her work was the use of words written in a rapid cursive hand on the images of hand (see for example “Le mie parole e tu?”, 1971). This was the common trait of two main series produced by Ketty La Rocca in the last years of her life: the “riduzioni” and the “craniologie”. In the former works, she developed her signature body of work, and passage after passage, with a gradual transfiguration, the images dissolve - through the act of writing - to the point where they become pure abstraction. In the “craniologie” she used the word “you”, written on the reproductions of x-rays of her skull, where the image of a hand of or a finger was superimposed on the cranial cavity. Ketty La Rocca constructed her own unique aesthetic language working with materials as different as the letters of the alphabet, hand gestures, x-rays of her own head, and the practice of automatic writing.
Over the last decades Ketty La Rocca works’ has gained widespread international acclaim. Several retrospectives have been organized in Italy, Europe and the United States, in public and private spaces, such as:
Centre d’art contemporain, Geneve (1992); Kunstlerhaus Stuttgart (1995); Kunsthalle Wien (1995); College Marcel Duchamp, Chateauroux (1996); Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio, La Spezia (1999); Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome (2001); Museo di arte contemporanea e del novecento, Monsummano Terme (2001); Palazzo Fabroni, Pistoia (2002); Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Los Angeles (2002); Galleria Emi Fontana, Milano (2005); MART Rovereto (2007); Palazzo Grassi, Venezia (2008). In 2007 some of her most important pieces have been shown at MOCA Los Angeles during the exhibition WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution. Recently one work has been acquired by Uffizi to be exhibited in the new wing (will be opened in 2011) of the Corridoio Vasariano.

Ketty La Rocca's main publications

1966 Il mito ci sommerge, Ed. Sampietro, Bologna.
1971 In principio erat, Ed. Centro Di, Firenze.
1972 Appendice per una supplica, Ed. Museum Am Ostwall, Dortmund.
1975 Ketty La Rocca, Monografia, Ed. Museum Am Ostwall, Dortmund.
1989 Ketty La Rocca, Catalogo retrospettiva, Ed. Carini, Firenze.

Main publication on Ketty La Rocca

1998 Ketty La Rocca, CD-Rom
1999 Ketty La Rocca, Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio La Spezia.
2001 Omaggio a Ketty La Rocca, Pacini Editore, Pisa.
2003 Ketty La Rocca, Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck.
2005 Ketty La Rocca: I suoi scritti, a cura di Lucilla Saccà, Martano Editore, Torino, 2005.
2007 AA. VV., Wack! Art and the Feminist Revolution, exh. cat., The Museum of Contemporary Art, L.A. and The MITT PRESS, Cambridge, 2007, pp. 114-15 e p. 289.
2008 AA.VV., Italics. Arte italiana fra tradizione e rivoluzione 1968-2008, exh. cat., Mondadori Electa, Milano, 2008, p. 101.
2008 Del Becaro, Elena, Intermedialità al femminile: l’opera di Ketty La Rocca, Mondadori Electa, Milano, 2008.
2009 Rebelle. Art & Feminism 1969-2009, (exh. Cat), MMKA, Arnhem, NL, pg. 220-221.
2010 Donna: Avanguardia Femminista negli anni ’70 dalla Sammlung Verbund di Vienna, (exh. Cat), Galleria nazionale d’arte moderna, Roma, pg. 46-55, Electa.

References

1974 Luigi Carluccio, Ketty La Rocca, Panorama, n. 421, 16/05/1974.
1976 Lucy R. Lippard, The Pains and Pleasures of Rebirth: Women’s Body Art, Art in America, n. 3, May-June 1976.
1990 Maria Luisa Frisa, Ketty La Rocca, Flash Art, n.155, Aprile-Maggio 1990, p.138.
1993 Judith Russi Kirshner, You and I, The Art of Ketty La Rocca, Artforum international, March 1993, pp. 80-83.
1995 Body as site at Kunsthalle, Flash Art International,, 1995.
1996 Il corpo come luogo alla Kunsthalle, Flash Art, n. 196, Febbraio-Marzo 1996, p.39.
1996 Giorgio Verzotti, Ketty La Rocca,” c’est elle qui souligne”, Blocnotes, Janvier- Fevrier 1996, pp. 54-59 e Ketty La Rocca “Emphasis Hers” pp. 115-119.
2002 Peter Frank, Ketty La Rocca, LA Weekly, April, 26-May, 2, 2002, p. 142.
2005 Alberto Mugnaini, Ketty La Rocca. Emi Fontana, Flash Art, n. 255, Dicembre 2005 - Gennaio 2006, p. 97.
2006 Francesca Pasini, Ketty La Rocca. Galleria Emi Fontana, Tema Celeste, n. 113, Gennaio-Febbraio 2006, p. 99.
2006 Daniela Palazzoli, Scritti di Ketty La Rocca, Arte & Critica, n. 46, Aprile-Giugno 2006, p. 87.
2007 Los Angeles. “Wack! Art and Feminist Revolution”, Flash Art International, n. 253, March-April 2007, p. 69.
2009 Chiara Bertola, Italics, Flash Art International, n. 264, January-Fabruary 2009, p. 96.
2010 Simone Menegoi, The Space Between Me and You, Kaleidoscope, n. 6 April-May 2010, pp. 104-109.